The major problem with Special Education, Welfare, and Affirmative Action programs as I see it is they can easily become a "crutch" or an "excuse" not to work hard and excel. When someone is given the label of "special education;" or is offered a free handout for not working, or passes with a lower score on a test because they qualify for affirmative action, are we really doing them a favor, or are we actually giving them an excuse not to perform up to the standards of others? Will these things affect these people for the rest of their lives? Or will they eventually learn to "raise the bar" on their own? I doubt the latter will occur in most cases.
Many people will probably disagree with me, but I think much of what is happening in the world of Special Education is dead wrong. Don't misunderstand me, I believe that young people who need extra help learning should get it, but in reality what happens in most Special Ed programs is that the are excused from doing the workload of "normal" students. This is where I believe the program breaks down. All parents have to do is get their kids labled Special Ed and their kids no longer have to work as hard as everyone else. Does this happen in every situation, no. But it does happen an awful lot. Also, students with sufficiently low IQ's or those who are mildly retarded may encounter some difficulties, however, I believe that most of them can complete difficult tasks if we work with them and provide them with alternate strategies. Most problems can be broken down into more manageable steps and can eventually be built upon to create the desired result. It may take them longer, and it may require more patience, but they can do what others do. They should not be given the opportunity to skip over things just because it might be challenging. They need to be challenged and be given the opportunity to find a way to succeed with help, and eventually without it. We cannot afford to enable young people to the point where they become dependent for the rest of their lives. We must encourage them to seek, learn, grow, and be productive and independent. If we fail at this, we will be paying for them with our tax dollars for their entire lives.
Welfare is known as an "entitlement program," meaning if your income is below a certain level, you are basically entitled to collect a certain amount of money from the government to keep from starving or freezing to death. I have seen many welfare recipients who drive up to the supermarket in Cadillacs and Lincoln Towncars to use their foodstamps to buy groceries and I have to stop and wonder what the deal is there? Welfare should not be a handout; it should be a hand up. We have an obligation to help those who are struggling and give them an opportunity to rise up and make something of themselves. The current structure of welfare does not do enough to encourage upward mobility. We need programs that provide assistance while one is training for a job. We need paid apprenticeships for these people where they can earn pride along with a paycheck. Most of all, we need to stop giving welfare to women who continuously get pregnant to qualify for more money. If they want to be a baby factory, then we'll offer them money to get proper birth control, and help them get the skills necessary to earn a living, not live off of someone else's tax monies. Welfare should have a clear starting date and ending date of no more than two years. In certain situations I can see it being extended, but that would have to be done by a case by case basis and require some sort of training program or college to certify it. In this country we should be in the business of creating independent, hardworking, and responsible citizens, not welfare bums living off our tax dollars.
Affirmative action in itself is an insult to most people. Basically we are saying: "Awww poor baby, you had a hard life, let me make it easier for you than for anyone else." This is a load of crap. I agree that the playing field should be level, no "gender norming", no "racial norming", and no charity cases. Everyone should have equal opportunity to the resources that will help them succeed in life, but we are not in the business of handing out freebies. You either earn your way, or you don't. Offer scholarships, offer loans, offer grants, offer college prep courses at the junior college level that prepare those who may be deficient for the real world. Do these things and don't make it easier for any person or group to get ahead. Example: my wife takes the LSAT, a test one must take before being accepted into law school, she finds out when the scores come out that if she had been Hispanic or African American, she would have passed and been admitted since these are two categories that Affirmative Action helps out. As a Caucasian, she is expected to score better on the test, what are we saying, that Caucasians are somehow better or have more opportunities than other groups? If so, doesn't Affirmative Action actually damage people by making them think they are somehow not as good as others and need some sort of special help to get by? What kind of message is that? I would rather respect the person who earns their way in this world by trial and failure. I don't care what color, orientation, creed, religion, what have you, the questions I want to ask are:
If you can answer yes to all these questions, and you can back it up by doing all of them, then let's get to work. Otherwise, you're wasting my time and money, pure and simple. And I don't want some sort of government payoff to keep you on the payroll doing nothing, just to make the demographics look good either.
All in all, I believe these programs have good intentions, however, I think good intentions do not make for good programs. We need to reevaluate them and come up with some alternatives. If we at least begin to put the kinds of things I've listed here into practice, we'll be on our way to creating a society of responsible, independent, and hard working citizens that have started to become in short demand in the past thirty or so years.
In Conclusion: I cannot make up for a past that I didn't create. I cannot give you a future that you didn't earn with your own two hands and the meat between your ears. Deal with it, get off your asses, and stop whining about it.